Kyle Teel Showcases Star Potential in Series Finale Against Rays
With the trade deadline looming, it was Kyle Teel who was making deals on Wednesday night.
The White Sox catcher swapped a signed bat, a baseball, and a few memorable photos with a young fan named Levi, who had made a running catch to secure Teel’s first career home run ball.
Teel knows a thing or two about trades — he was dealt to the White Sox over the offseason as part of a package deal that sent Garrett Crochet to the Red Sox. In Wednesday’s series finale against the Rays, he showed exactly why he was once ranked among MLB’s Top 100 prospects.
Teel collected four hits, scored three runs and drove in a pair of RBIs in the White Sox 11-9 comeback victory. The lone out in his 4-for-5 day at the plate came on a 107 mph line drive to right field that was snagged by a diving Josh Lowe.
He also made his presence felt behind the plate, throwing out a would-be base stealer in the fifth inning and nearly nabbing another in the first with a remarkable sidearm throw — all after reaching across the plate to snag a pitch well outside the strike zone.
With the White Sox trailing 6-4, Teel led off the top of the sixth inning with his first career homer off Rays right-hander Joe Boyle. Boyle left a fastball over the heart of the plate in the second pitch of the at-bat, which Teel proceeded to drive 336 feet into right field.
But Teel wasn’t done yet. In the eighth inning, he came through once again, cutting the White Sox deficit to a single run with an RBI single up the middle that scored Andrew Benintendi. Two batters later, he was flying around the base paths, diving headfirst across home plate to score from second on a Colson Montgomery double.
It’s a continuation of what has been an impressive rookie season for Teel. Since the All-Star break, he has gone 7-for-14 at the plate with a .786 slugging percentage. If he had enough at-bats to be considered a qualified MLB hitter, his 13.9% walk rate and .498 expected slugging percentage would rank near the top of the league.
His recent efforts have helped cap off a 5-1 road trip to open the second half of the season, in which the White Sox have scored an MLB high 49 runs. Hitting is contagious — and as Teel put it after Wednesday’s win, it’s also a lot of fun.